Returning to Quebec City is a two-day affair for us. That’s discounting the quasi-time dilation brought by flying east.
Our journey begins with a four-hour drive from Vieste to Naples. Crossing Italy from west to east provides beautiful vistas. It starts with a view of the Adriatic Sea, its tall white cliffs and sandy beaches, then shifts to fields of olive trees planted in neat rows farther inland in Gargano Park. Exiting the park through the south affords a last glimpse of the sea before heading firmly inland. The next three hours alternate between fields of yellow and green with the occasional rest stop or small city.
Getting into Naples is chaotic. As much as the rules of the road are closer to suggestions of the road in Italy, they seem to be footnotes of the road in Naples. How many lanes are available on any given street is really more of a question of physics than any line painted on the road surface. Anyways, you’ll be hard pressed to find lines painted. That triangle pointing down, telling motorists to yield, is but a sign to the Neapolitan driver that a game of chicken is afoot. Driving the streets of Napoli is not hard; you have to be alert, suspend any belief in rules, and embrace the chaos.
Parked near Napoli Centrale, we stopped and made our way for one last pizza at Da Michele. We expected the usual hour-long wait and fifteen-minute meal, but when we arrived, the line was about three times as long as usual. With all the speed and efficiency of Da Michele's amazing high-volume craftsmanship, there was no way this line would be anything less than a two-hour wait. Karine spotted two terraces across the street, offering drinks while you eat your pizza from Da Michele.
While I’m usually against bringing outside drink or food to a restaurant, it seemed tolerated if not encouraged. Also, while I wanted the pizza, Naples isn’t the cleanest city by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn’t see any place on its streets where I would be willing to sit and eat it without fear of what else might get on my food.
We got into the takeaway line and received our pizza within ten minutes. Crossing the street for water, then coffee, we were done with our pizza in less than half an hour. The most efficient Da Michele pizza we’ve ever had, by a wide margin. Seating at the bars is pretty limited, so I wouldn’t count on this approach working every time, but it’s worth the attempt if the line is too long. It’s surprising what you can learn by disregarding social conventions.
We said goodbye to warm weather, dropped the car at the airport, and waited for our flight to Brussels. We might have left ourselves with too much of a buffer, as we arrived at the airport four hours before our flight. We had to wait just under three hours to check in in person; mobile check-in has gone the way of the dodo, with all the COVID documentation that must be shown before an airline will let you board. For all the form-filling I had to do, they only checked that I had a QR code for the Belgian passenger locator form (nobody ever scanned it). It’s a step up from our arrival in Italy, I suppose. The Italians had a token sign to let you know you should fill it out, but nobody ever checked whether we did.
A two-hour flight later, we made it to Brussels and the Sheraton in front of the terminal for a short night's sleep. The alarm is set to 5:30, an hour that’s just too early for vacation time. It’ll make us appreciate our usual 7:00 wake-up on Monday, I suppose.
